


at the blood's perimeter

by Arazsya



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Accidents, Dogs, Giving up a pet, M/M, bereavement
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:52:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29072850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arazsya/pseuds/Arazsya
Summary: Moments with families, some born and some found.
Relationships: Edward Keystone/Tjelvar Stornsnasson
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17
Collections: EdTjelvar Week 2021





	at the blood's perimeter

**Author's Note:**

> Written for EdTjelvar Week 2021 - Day 3, Family
> 
> title from "Animal Life" by Shearwater, which is currently the entirety of my Edward Keystone playlist. more tags may be added as chapters are.

It isn’t Edward’s fault. He’s sure of that, this time. Everything he could stand to do to get the dog not to follow him, he’d done, from hiding to calmly explaining that she couldn’t come to throwing a stick in the opposite direction. None of it had worked. Even when he’d shouted at her, loud enough that his throat had hurt and his voice had strained, she’d just dropped forward into a clumsy play bow, stubby tail wagging so much it had almost knocked her over.

And then it had got dark, and cold with it, and she’s only little, like him, and they’d both started shivering, and he couldn’t have left her. So they’d run home across the fields together, fast enough that at times Edward had managed to leave his apprehension in his mud-smeared footsteps, had nothing in his chest but a bright, thrumming joy.

By the time they’re close enough to the house that he can’t not see it anymore, that’s snuffed away and all but forgotten. His head is a cloud of nagging worry that has him slipping in at the servants’ entrance, skulking against the walls all the way up to his bedroom.

They’re both soaked to the skin, so he gets a fire going, rubs the dog down with a towel – it’s a slow process, because she takes every opportunity to lick his hands, his face, whatever he puts within range. Underneath the plastered muck and water, she’s black and white and skinny, a line of speckles along her nose that he can’t count because she won’t stay still enough.

“What’s your name, then?” he asks, as he dries off one of her forepaws. She says nothing – just sits, tail setting a muffled rhythm against the floorboards, and watches him through bright, intelligent brown eyes. She can probably add numbers, he thinks, absently. “You look like an Annie?”

She lunges for his face again, nails scrabbling at his shirt in an effort to stabilise herself as her tongue swipes dangerously close to his eye.

“Annie it’ll be, then,” he says, screwing up his face, and then presses his lips closed before she can lick there, too.

That night, tired out, she sleeps on his bed. She’s a warm weight amongst the blankets, curled between his chest and the crook of his arm, her fur soft where it brushes against his skin as she breathes. Perfect, Edward thinks, the word and all the sentiment that goes with it the last distinct thing in his mind before the morning brings the Duke.

He doesn’t knock, because he never knocks, not in his own house. Just sweeps into the room, leaves Edward bleary and confused and struggling upright as the sheets tangle around his limbs.

Annie has no such difficulties. She scrambles down onto the floor, barking and growling in a pitch that drills through his skull, and he almost falls as he lunges after her, somehow manages to scoop her up without falling himself.

“What is _this_?” the Duke demands.

“I– I found her,” Edward stammers. She squirms in his arms, trying to get back onto the floor, but he manages to keep his grip, on her if on nothing else. The Duke shouldn’t be here – waking in the morning and getting himself to breakfast, to his lessons, is his own responsibility. Maybe someone _had_ seen him, after all, but then this shouldn’t have taken so long. “She’s called Annie. She’s my friend.”

“No.” The Duke squares his shoulders, glares, and Edward quails. “The son of the Duke of York will _not_ have a shepherd’s dog. Get rid of it.”

“She’s _not_ a shepherd’s dog,” Edward whispers, and it hurts, even as quiet as it is. Already over. “She’s _my_ dog.”

“You can’t have a dog,” the Duke says, and there’s a deep, rumbling warning tone there now. Edward can feel an answer vibrating under Annie’s fur, and silently wills her to stop.

“Why?” He shouldn’t ask, knows that the Duke’s will has always been enough of a reason before, but the question slips out anyway.

“You’re…” The Duke hesitates, his gaze flickering for a moment, though his bearing stays firm, utterly intractable. “Allergic.”

“What’s allergic?”

“It means you’ll get ill if you’re around them too long.”

“I don’t _feel_ ill.” It’s not true, exactly – his throat aches, and his head is still sleep-fogged. But he knows why those are there, and it’s nothing to do with Annie.

“You will.” The Duke folds his arms, and then the set of his shoulders eases, just a little. “Get rid of it, Edward. Or I will. You have a new tutor arriving tomorrow, and I don’t want a single dog hair left in the house when he gets here. Understand?”

“I understand,” Edward says, slow and flat. There’s no other way to answer. He’s been alive long enough to know that.

That doesn’t mean, when he leaves Annie with the Church of Athena, asking them in a splintering voice to take good care of her, that he walks away any straighter. That the tears flow any less freely. That it doesn’t feel like he’s left the larger part of his heart there, too.


End file.
